Smart Budgeting in Your Urban Seattle Apartment

Living in an apartment comes with many benefits, and one of those benefits is the opportunity to save money on monthly expenses while still having access to amenities like a pool and gym. If you’re not ready to buy a home or aren’t interested in home ownership, living in an apartment is an ideal solution for getting the best of both worlds: a cozy home and luxury-grade amenities.

However, when you choose to live in an apartment, it’s also quite easy to fall into the trap of reckless spending. Putting money aside for a rainy day or emergency becomes something you rarely think about, and you don’t realize how much money you’re spending on items you don’t really need or that are redundant in your overall budget.

There are a few easy changes you can make to your monthly spending to reduce the size of your budget and ensure you can save money for emergencies, as well as put money aside for important or big purchases like cars, vacations, and homes.

Furnish Your Home With Used Furniture and Decor

Snagging the most sought-after furniture that features the styles everyone seems to be using can make for some fun weekends spent shopping, but furnishing your home with a slew of brand-new furniture could break your budget for several months. Additionally, many of the “updated” or popular styles used in modern decorating are simply refreshed styles used decades ago.

For example, the sleek, modern decor loved by many apartment dwellers is available at any luxury furniture store, but those trendy pieces are also waiting for you at garage sales and through websites like Craigslist. Someone somewhere had the same idea as you for decorating his or her living room, and now they’re selling that piece online.

Consider: Don’t pay retail prices for your apartment furniture. Try looking for used pieces before settling on brand new merchandise.

Take Your Time to Furnish and Select Services

When you move into your new Seattle apartment, there’s no reason to fill the apartment with furniture and choose all your services immediately upon moving in. As long as you have a few basics available when you walk in the door, you shouldn’t need to rush out and buy everything you’re missing.

Here is a short list of the items that you should have when you first move into your new place

1. Basic cutlery, dishes, and a few pans for the kitchen

2. The toiletries you use each day before work or school

3. Something to sleep on (a bed) and a few chairs (or a couch)

Just about everything else in your apartment is an item you can obtain over the first few months you live in your apartment. Take your time getting the items for your new apartment, and you’ll have the opportunity to save a lot of money by finding things used and on sale.

You probably just paid a fair amount of money for you “first month, last month, and security deposit” for your apartment, and spending as much as you can as quickly as you can when you first move in can prove problematic when you find it difficult to pay your bills.

Muriel’s Landing: Your New Urban Seattle Apartment

Would you like to live in an idyllic and eco-friendly apartment community in the middle of Seattle? We give our residents the best of both worlds by offering immense views of the surrounding mountains, convenient access to everything urban Seattle has to offer, and nature-themed amenities throughout the community. Contact us today for a tour.